By Nolan Johnson, CAD/EDA Manager, Sunstone CircuitsThe prototype fabrication process is of critical importance in catching design errors early and effectively. It is the prototype hardware, after all, which verifies the original design intent embodied by the CAD file contents; the relationship is symbiotic. When a design team puts their ...

By Alan Cable, President, ACE Production Technologies Inc., Spokane Valley, WASelective soldering is a flexible, adaptable process that is increasingly applied to an ever-widening range of soldering tasks. Indeed, selective soldering has moved beyond the role of being a problem application solution and into the soldering production mainstream. Flexible innovations ...

By Kenneth Schiffer, Vice President, Apollo Seiko, Bridgman, MI Laser-powered selective soldering offers some very special benefits, including extremely precise soldering areas, along with a high level of programmable versatility. Now Apollo Seiko has put together a very special laser system — a single phase, multi-power laser which accepts input ...

By Frank Silva, FocalSpot, Inc., San Diego, CABesides improper design methods, it is well documented that the Assembly setup and placement process contributes to 15 to 20 percent of the most common SMT defects, such as missing parts, wrong parts, misplaced parts, and wrong polarity. In addition, 50 to 65 percent of Board Assembly ...

By Stanley L. Bentley, P.E., Senior Technical Advisor, Divsys International LLC, and David Fissell, MBB Principal, Global Lean ConsultingThe harsh upheaval of the US PWB market has changed the dynamics by which suppliers and users of PWBs interact. Fabricators have become brokers, blurring the lines between manufacturer and re-seller. Further, aggressive roll-up companies have consumed dozens of former fabricators, eliminating ...

By Tom Mealy, Virtual Industries, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO Handling parts during assembly can entail the use of a variety of different tools. Larger parts can be handled easily by hand without the assistance of any special tooling. Bus as parts become smaller and more fragile, specialized handling tools become more important. For many decades ...